


know what it is to grow

by ohmygodwhy



Series: little star chasers [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Relationship, Sparring, character study-esque
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 08:37:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10532823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: First and foremost, Keith was a creature of action. Shiro knew it from the first time he saw him, watching Keith fly one of the simulations.or: keith fights, and shiro learns





	

**Author's Note:**

> basically a little scene referenced in my other vld fic that i wanted to write for real for some reason?? alternate title: shiro has a crush on keith but doesn't realize until he's literally fighting for his life lol

 

First and foremost, Keith was a creature of action. 

Shiro knew it from the first time he saw him, watching Keith fly one of the simulations. He had good instinct and and quick reaction time and his flying was based more on impulse than any formal technique, but he was _good_. He never once stopped _acting_ , whether it was reading the terrain or making quick decisions or even landing (a little rusty, trouble slowing down).

He was a creature of action—but acting without thinking was just impulse, and Keith was full of plenty of that, too, which was good or bad, depending on who you asked. To the Garrison, it was mostly bad—it had Keith crashing group simulations and mouthing off to other students or teachers, sometimes. 

And so the Garrison sent him to Shiro—to be mentored, he was told, to set him on the right track. He was too arrogant, he was told, too rude, too full of himself—“has the talent to be something great, but convinced he can do it by himself”.

Shiro didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t what he got. _I’ve never been good at anything before_ , the younger boy told him, fire in his eyes and a life of being beat down under his skin, _and now I am_ , and _I don’t think I should have to pretend not to be as good as I am to make other people feel better, when every other time, other people have no problem telling me exactly what I’m doing wrong_ , and finally _I’m not going to apologize for finally being good at something._

And he doesn’t—Keith doesn’t apologize for being _great_ at something, better than most of his peers, as good as most of _Shiro’s_ peers, and he doesn’t apologize for storming off, really, but they reach some sort of a truce anyways. Keith is more like him than he thought—he has talent he doesn’t know what to do with, and he’s been separated from his fellow cadets because of it, but he doesn’t give up easily. 

He doesn’t give up at all, Shiro learns. It’s a Friday night, the first in a long line of Fridays, when Shiro asks Keith to spar with him for the first time. Hand-to-hand combat isn’t a required skill for a pilot to have, but it’s necessary to be in shape, and always good to have some extra skills handy in case anything happens. (“What, you gonna fist fight an alien?” Keith teases later, months and months later, when Shiro tells him he’s been accepted for the Kerberos mission, sitting up on the roof after curfew, with the nighttime Arizona chill running through Keith’s hair.) 

Again, Shiro doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it isn’t what he gets. 

It’s obvious Keith has never been formally trained—his punches are too loose and his stance isn’t solid enough—but he still holds his own for a little while. He fights the way he flies—instinctual, a little wild, a little rough around the edges, and something so different from the rigid training everyone goes though here. It’s a style completely unique to him, the way he walks and talks and lives. 

There’s a lifetime of fighting behind his movements. Keith is a creature of action, and Keith has always fought—for what, Shiro isn’t sure of quite yet. 

Eventually, Shiro manages to grab on and not let go, gets him into a hold with his arms twisted behind his back, bent forward awkwardly, breath ragged. Shiro takes a moment to catch his breath, waiting for Keith to tap out.

He doesn’t. Instead, he moves, unexpected, leaning forwards before pushing back, using the momentum to kick backwards and hook his foot around Shiro’s ankle and _pull,_ almost knocking his off his feet.

_“Ow,”_ Shiro hears when Keith twists out of his hands, and then “Shit, sorry,” Keith says quickly, rubbing at his arm where it bent weird.

Shiro just stands there for a second, catching his breath again. He’s nearly always won with that hold, against all kinds of opponents—your arms are pushed together in a way that makes twisting your way out without hurting yourself pretty much impossible. Keith had managed to surprise him and get out of the hold—didn’t even dislocate anything by accident.

“It’s fine,” he says, catching Keith’s vaguely anxious eyes, “Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, it’s not sprained or anything.”

That’s good, Shiro thinks vaguely, nods, relieved. He watches Keith catch his breath, watches him push the sweaty hair back from his eyes and rub at his arm a little more.

Before he can stop himself, he asks, “Why’d you try so hard to win?” Keith just blinks at him, so he elaborates, “It was just a sparring match, it’s not worth hurting yourself over.”

Keith shrugs, crossing his arms, “If you give up once, you’ll keep on doing it,” like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “I don’t wanna keep on doing it.”

It strikes something in Shiro, this boy with mountains of potential inside him, this boy who’s taught himself to never ever give up. It’s why he gets into fights, it’s why he crashes the simulator where he shouldn’t have taken risks—it’s why he’s _here,_ Shiro realizes. He got in on exam scores alone, he was told—paid admission and filled out the right paperwork and took the damn tests, tearing through them the way he tears through everything they place in front of him.

Keith is a creature of action, but to say that’s all he is would be a lie. Keith is a creature of focus, too, a creature of teeth and stone and surprising kindness—he’s _good._ He’s so good, and doesn’t even know it. 

That night sticks with him for a long time.

 

It sticks with him through their growing friendship, sticks with him through the trip to Kerberos and sticks with him through their capture and torture and certainly sticks with him in the arena. 

At first he fights because he has to, because he’s terrified. When they take the Holts away, he fights because he’s angry, because he’s desperate. Eventually, he doesn’t know what he’s fighting for, just that he’s doing viciously well—so well it scares him sometimes, when he’s sitting in a cell in the dark with the smell of blood stuck in his nose and under his fingernails.

They bring him out to face who they call Champion, say this is where he’ll probably die, say he should give them his last words they won’t tell to the people that he wants to hear them. 

The thought that scares him the most is that he’d probably be okay with that. He’s just. He’s so tired. He’s so _tired_.

He’s weak and he’s tired and it would be so so easy to just give up, to stop fighting, to accept his defeat with some amount of dignity, of choice. But he hears Keith saying _give up once and you’ll keep doing it, give up once and you’ll never stop—_ and how many times has he given up already? He barely fought back when they took his arm. He doesn’t know where the Holts are. _I don’t wanna keep doing it,_ Keith says to him, and Shiro doesn’t wanna keep doing it either.

_What would Keith do?_ He thinks as he’s pushed into the arena for what feel like the thousandth time.

And the answer is _fight._ Keith would fight, Keith would go down swinging, with all the fire behind his eyes and stone in his movements. Keith would fight and Keith would _win_ —and if he didn’t win at least he could say he didn’t give up. That boy did a lot of things, but he never gave up.

And so Shiro takes a deep breath, raises his arm, and fights.

 

**Author's Note:**

> comments will get me through standardized testing week pls help me


End file.
